1st

What is Fallout 1st?

Fallout 1st is a monthly subscription service that offers some cosmetics, atoms, and private servers. It costs 12.99USD a month.

Should I subscribe to Fallout 1st?

For most people, the answer is no. There is no shortage of free atoms, so the atoms a 1st subscription gives you are superfluous. There is no shortage of cool outfits, so the Ranger armor a 1st subscription gives you is really only worth it for people who strongly desire that particular outfit and aren't satisfied with the plethora of other outfits. The scrap box is a nice convenience so you can carelessly dump everything in your stash, but as someone who has been playing since day1 of beta and has the best guns and armor, I can attest to the fact that it's not actually needed and doesn't really offer much of a convenience over not having it, since bulking scrap and selling it is a recommended way to make caps anyway and naturally lightens up your stash. The vast majority of my stash limit is dedicated to weapons, stuff I plan to sell to the scrip vendor, armor/power armor, the items that are in my player vendor and my displays, and a small amount to aid and ammo. Putting my scrap in a scrap stash would only free up a few tens of pounds, because I bulk and sell any extreme excess of any type of scrap I have anyway.
It's worth mentioning that you keep the outfit and the atoms once your subscription runs out, and any scrap you put in your scrap stash does stay there, you just can't put more in. So if one does choose to subscribe, there is very little reason to stay subscribed every month out of the year. Certainly not if you're just in it for the outfits and the atoms, and even if you do make use of th eprivate server, it's worth considering only in a month you plan to play a lot. So when people say stuff like "wow it's 100USD a year!" these people are being a bit dishonest.


So then who should get Fallout 1st?

Other than individuals who strongly desire the Ranger armor, the people who should get a 1st subscription are those who want to rent a private server. Much like Minecraft's server rental program, you can pay a monthly or annual fee to play on your own private server and invite your friends. Because mods for 76 are rumored to be released on private servers, it's worth it to have a private server if you plan to mod the game. This may change since mods aren't out yet and there may be mod-enabled public servers at some point, but if they're on private servers first or something like that, then a private server will have an actual use. As of now, the tangible advantage a private server offers is no competition for spawns. You are alone in a world so you can get the first mole mine treasure hunter spawn, for example. This is a nice convenience, but since 76 is not a pvp game and the pvp aspect doesn't have meaningful gameplay no matter what you do, you're not really competing with other people in a direct sense of the word. In other words, it's hard to gain a meaningful advantage over other players in a game that is not competing with other players. There are only non-meaningful advantages, like getting first dibs on cap stashes and the various guaranteed spawns that may have been taken already on a public server.


Don't the atoms alone make the subscription "worth it"?

If you take the price of atoms at face value, a 1st subscription does give you enough atoms that a subscription is priced around the same amount as buying that many atoms. The issue with this is that you should never take the price of atoms at face value. I buy stuff from the atoms shop fairly regularly and I have never felt a desire to buy atoms, because plenty are given to you through gameplay. And not just gameplay, but regular gameplay. You get atoms for killing legendary enemies, leveling up, using power armor, picking flowers, eating pre-war food, collecting wood, scraping weapons, completing events, and many other regular things you do anyway. Many of the atom daily and weekly challenges can and will be completed without even looking at what they are or changing your typical gameplay at all. This is also why the people who say stuff like "wow this power armor paint skin is 15USD" are being a bit dishonest. So no, I would not buy a 1st subscription of I just wanted atoms, because I also would not buy atoms at all in the first place.


Is Fallout 1st a good thing or a bad thing?

It depends. My opinion is that the current incarnation of 1st is a bad thing. I believe that a simple server rental program would be an ok or good thing, and people could pay some small fee to have a private server. This makes sense and Minecraft has been doing this for a decade. The reason I don't like what 1st currently is is because of the cosmetics. They should separate them and draw a clear distinction to what 1st is. if it was clearly and distinctly a server rental program, I would have no issue with it. But because it's got a bundle of cosmetics and atoms and stuff like that, it's not just a server rental program. My opinion is that those cosmetics should be in the atom shop just like any other cosmetic, and the 1st subscription should distinctly be a server rental program.